Komos

The grc (; : grc) was a ritualistic drunken procession performed by revelers in ancient Greece, whose participants were known as kōmasts (κωμασταί, grc). Its precise nature has been difficult to reconstruct from the diverse literary sources and evidence derived from vase painting.

The earliest reference to the grc is in Hesiod's Shield of Herakles, which indicates it took place as part of wedding festivities (line 281). And famously Alcibiades gate-crashes the Symposium while carousing in a grc. However, no one kind of event is associated with the grc: Pindar describes them taking place at the city festivals (Pythian 5.21, 8.20, Olympian 4.9), while Demosthenes mentions them taking place after the grc and grc on the first day of the Greater Dionysia (Speeches 21.10), which may indicate the grc might have been a competitive event.

The grc must be distinguished from the pompe, or ritual procession, and the chorus, both of which were scripted. The grc lacked a chorus leader, script, or rehearsal. In the performance of Greek victory odes (grc) at post-Game celebrations for winning athletes, the choral singers often present themselves as kōmasts, or extend an invitation to join the grc, as if the formal song were a preliminary to spontaneous revelry. Nevertheless, some grc were expressly described as grc ('modest', 'decent'), which implies that standard grc were anything but.

Demosthenes upbraids the brother-in-law of Aeschines for not wearing a mask during the komos, as was the custom (On the Embassy 19.287), suggesting costume or disguise may have been involved. The playing of music during the grc is also mentioned by Aristophanes (grc 104, 988) and Pindar (Olympian 4.9, Pythian 5.22). There are also depictions of torch-lit processions in vase painting, yet it is not always clear from the evidence of vases if they depict symposia, choruses or kōmoi.

It is now widely thought that grc and κωμῳδία – grc, "comedy", are etymologically related, the derivation being grc + ᾠδή - o(i)de, "song" (from ἀείδω – grc, "sing"). However, in part III of the Poetics, Aristotle records the tradition that the word grc derives from the Megaran mime that took place in the villages of Sicily, hence from κώμη – grc . Nevertheless, it remains unclear exactly how the revel-song developed into the Greek Old comedy of the Dionysian festival in the 6th century BC.